Good morning. It’s Thursday, Oct. 2.
- Trump administration punishes California after shutdown.
- San Francisco gets carried away with its dog culture.
- And the elaborate designs of October corn mazes.
Statewide
1.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday ended one of the most contentious policies Kamala Harris championed during her time as San Francisco district attorney: a 2011 law that threatened parents with prosecution if their children missed too much school. The law became a flashpoint in Harris’ political career as critics on the left accused her of criminalizing parents. In 2019, as pictures of mothers in handcuffs dogged her presidential campaign, she expressed “regret” for her part in pushing the law. Politico
2.
Dispatches from the government shutdown:
- Visitors trickled into California’s national parks on Wednesday, for free, even as most employees were told to go home. Garbage and vandalism could become a problem if the shutdown drags on. The Interior Department suggested park “friend” organizations could step in to help. S.F. Chronicle | Politico
- The Trump administration on Wednesday froze $26 billion for Democratic-leaning states, following through on a threat to use the shutdown to attack Democratic priorities. A key target: green energy projects, including California’s effort to develop clean hydrogen energy. N.Y. Times | L.A. Times
3.
Ricardo Lara, California’s insurance commissioner, took at least 48 trips across the globe since he assumed office in 2019, but the agency only named a business purpose for seven of them, a journalism investigation found. In Dubai, Lara stayed at a five-star “Polynesian-themed” resort for 10 days. In Cape Town, he enjoyed a luxury safari during a two-and-a-half week stay. In New York, Lara stayed in a five-star hotel and was escorted around town by private security. All of it, including hiking poles, was covered by California taxpayers. KGO
4.
October is here, which means it’s time for that oddball American pastime of getting lost on a farm. With each passing year, California’s corn maze designs seem to get more elaborate. Tayler Cooley, whose family owns Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon, said the work of carving his farm’s colossal 35-acre maze takes about a week. “Everything is done by hand,” she told the Associated Press.
Below, see a few of this year’s designs.
The Los Rios Rancho maze in Oak Glen resembles a circuit board.
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Brookshire Farms in San Luis Obispo chose a “Sesame Street” theme.
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Swank Farms in Hollister looks like a bunch of tennis balls.
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The Cool Patch Pumpkins maze celebrates farmers.
Northern California
5.
After serving 23 years in prison, Joey Alexander found a new life as a community ambassador with the nonprofit Urban Alchemy in San Francisco. His job was to help calm a rough area in front of the Main Library across from City Hall. When he asked a man to stop openly using drugs last Friday, the man produced a shotgun, said “Fuck Urban Alchemy” and shot Alexander, reports said. He died on Tuesday. “That’s all it ever takes,” said Marvin Alexander, his brother. “One idiot.” S.F. Chronicle
6.
In 2019, Shawn Richard opened the first weed shop under San Francisco’s “social equity program,” which reserved cannabis licenses for people unfairly harmed by the war on drugs. It was an epic failure. Yet the City Hall insiders who backed the store are now poised to walk away with millions. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote about how the city’s equity program left many applicants crushed by debt, even as politically connected partners cashed in.
7.
San Francisco is America’s most dog-friendly city. But even some dog lovers are complaining that the level of tolerance for dogs has gone too far, as the animals put their paws on cafe counters, drool on people’s pastries at the park, and roam around gyms. “I just don’t think it’s cool getting licked in the face at the gym,” said Ralph Migdal, 63, who was doing sit-ups when someone’s dog paid a visit. When he alerted the owner, who was on his phone, he said, “Sorry dude.” Wall Street Journal
8.
Technology writer Charlie Warzel on YouTube’s decision to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by President Trump:
“All of this amounts to a rounding error for the tech giants — averaged out, YouTube made more than $107 million from ad revenue every single day last quarter — but these are still acts of profound obsequiousness and corporate cowardice.” The Atlantic
9.
Mad River cuts across some of Northern California’s wildest backcountry, a place where people go to disappear. Katy Grannan, a photographer who has specializes in society’s peripheries, sought out the region’s inhabitants for a portrait series. They include a teenager with autism, a circus performer, a queer farmer, and a man and his goat. The project is now on display at San Francisco’s Fraenkel Gallery through Oct. 25. The San Francisco Chronicle called it “a gorgeous, untamed look at the people of Humboldt County.” Fraenkel Gallery
Southern California
10.
The Dodgers are arguably the most popular sports franchise in Los Angeles and a cultural touchstone for the city’s Latinos. But the team has been mostly quiet about President Trump’s summer immigration raids. “The Dodgers are a conspicuously multicultural franchise,” wrote the New York Times Magazine. “It hardly requires a leap of imagination for the team’s executives to feel at risk of retribution from the Trump administration.”
11.
Los Angeles broke ground Wednesday on a $2.6 billion expansion of the city’s convention center, with plans to host fencing, wrestling, table tennis and other events during the 2028 Olympics. Critics say the timeline is so optimistic that it borders on reckless. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky said, “Over the next 910 days, crews would have to work six days a week, every week, with only 20 days of float days and several more for bad weather and other contingencies. That’s approximately five weeks of slack in a 130 week construction schedule. Even the smallest disruption … will push us off schedule.” Politico
California archive
12.
“That has got to hurt!”
In the early 1980s, one of the most popular segments on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” involved men donned in Speedos and shin guards leaping into pools from terrifying heights. It was on a clear Saturday in March 1983 that five such daredevils performed the highest dives ever at SeaWorld San Diego — 172 feet. Under the rules of the oddball sport, valid dives had to meet two conditions: they must include at least one somersault, and the athlete must exit the water without help. As such, the sixth diver of the day, Pat Picard, who entered the water at an angle and fell unconscious, did not qualify.
The record has stood ever since. It’s not that no one has tried. In 1985, Randy Dickison of Minneapolis broke his leg during a dive from 174 feet and had to be rescued. Olivier Favre, a Frenchman who dove from 177 feet in 1987, also had to be rescued after breaking his back. And in 2015, a Swiss athlete named Laso Schaller leapt from a nauseating 193 feet, which was recognized as the highest dive ever by the Guinness Book of Records. But he performed no somersault and was towed from the water with a rope.
That doesn’t count, according to Dana Kunze, one of the SeaWorld San Diego record holders. Kunze made a lifelong career out of his moment of fame, producing high-diving events around the country. Asked about Schaller’s “record,” an indignant Kunze set Newsweek straight: “I clearly broke the record. I clearly got out of the pool under my own power and did the interviews. And I clearly went out and had a couple of cold ones that night.”
- See Kunze’s record dive.
- Or watch the entire “Wide World of Sports” episode.
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